


TLFH: Summer Break

by AndIMustMask



Series: Monsters in YOUR Neighborhood, News at Eleven [INDEFINITE HIATUS] [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, MONSTERS IN YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD, Multi, News at eleven, Other, Spoilers, TLFH, Too late for halloween, for the love of god spoilers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-07
Updated: 2020-01-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 13:21:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22157722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndIMustMask/pseuds/AndIMustMask
Summary: A loose collection of stories for the TLFH series posted ahead of time. Chapters will be gradually slotted into TLFH proper when the plot catches up, so chapter numbers may fluctuate wildly.Contains spoilers, obviously.
Series: Monsters in YOUR Neighborhood, News at Eleven [INDEFINITE HIATUS] [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/68066
Comments: 1
Kudos: 2





	1. Return

**Author's Note:**

> Once again, a friendly warning that chapters posted here are set further along in the story of 'Too Late For Halloween' and therefore contain spoilers, so if you're not comfortable with that, now's your chance to get off the ride.

The process of returning is almost jarringly mundane. No rituals, no virgin sacrifices, just opening a door and stepping out of a gnarled oak and into the same woods you left from.

You turn to give your thanks to Aradia for her help, only to find a bare tree trunk. John is staring at it as well, sadness blurry behind his eyes.

It's night time now, and when you hear the crunch of snow under your boots you know something is wrong.

"So we're back then?" Dave asks, still nursing his ribs.

John laughs, but there's a brittle edge to it. "Looks like it."

Jade simply shivers and sets out, her mouth a hard line.

It's snowing fairly heavily, so you and the others make for shelter--since it's quite a trek to your house even without the weather, you make for your old campsite instead. Jade guides you all there wordlessly.

The hike is quiet; after the first few minutes of shivering John 'has a word' with the wind, which parts around your group to spare you the worst of the chill, carrying the falling snow with it. A tic works at Dave's jaw at the display, but he says nothing. He fares the worst as you go, his injuries slowing him to a trudge at best. Jade circles back often to check on him, and you and John keep to his pace.

As the campsite comes into view your earlier feeling at the snow comes back: something is definitely wrong. Two of the tents you brought have collapsed under the snow, and one is missing altogether.

Jade approaches it and stops short. She pauses at the zipper-door before opening it, a small growl coming from the interior. You all jump as she cuts it off with a vicious snarl of her own and the noise falls silent as she pulls up the zipper, a pair of terrified foxes darting out and into the woods.

She pokes her head in and you hear a sigh of irritation before leaning back out and circling the tent, pulling out the stakes. John starts to question her before she bodily lifts the tent off the ground, dumping a pile of dirt, leaves, and small bones out onto the ground.

Jade carries it closer to the remains of the firepit and starts kicking the snow away before John catches her meaning. There's small whistle as the air gathers and spins, blasting a clearing out of the snow in a few seconds before dissipating as quickly as it started, leaving an area encompassing her and the long-dead firepit free of snow.

With her front now covered in the stuff, Jade is not amused. John gives her a sheepish 'sorry' as she sets the tent down on it's side, unzipping the bottom and dumping out yet more refuse before righting it and placing the stakes back down.

You all move forward to enter before Jade stops you, grabbing Dave by the sleeve.

"I'm gonna borrow him, can we have a second?" All three of you raise your eyebrows and her mouth flattens ruefully as she considers her phrasing.

You consider ribbing her, and can see John weighing it as well before she simply huffs and tugs the limping boy into the tent after her.

There's a deadpan cry of "Kyaaa, Jade-dono yamete!" followed by uncomfortable near-silence ( _a hissing breath woah hey hands off--shh--holy fuck cold woah woah harley what the f--a low slap as a hand clamps over dave's mouth_ ). _Cold_ uncomfortable near-silence. Several tense minutes later, you hear a rustle of cloth over the nylon floor and someone knocks on the inside of the tent zipper-flap.

With the all-clear given you and John clamber inside in short order, ignoring the tight quarters and the weather-musty smell while they give the two of you room to squeeze in, ignoring that she's normal but out of breath and his clothes are matted to him askew, red creeping up his ears.

Dave starts out sitting normally, but after a few minutes he's shamelessly draped across Jade's lap, naturally warm as she is. Her hand drifts gingerly to his head and ruffles his hair.

You're content to sit separately before Dave flaps an arm at you, and you acquiesce to Jade pulling you to her side.

John sidles carefully around the three of you and sits with his back to Jade's, propping you and her up.

Dave breaks the silence; a muffled 'I love you guys' from Jade's thigh.

From there the four of you sit quietly, content with the sounds of your breathing and the warmth of each other. As the night passes you all relax into what ends up as a pile of bodies, everyone pressed together and semi-comfortably interlocked, happy that... well, just _relieved_ for the first time in this whole ordeal. 

Dave is the first to sleep.

\- - - - -

You wake with an elbow in your neck and someone's leg slung over your stomach.

The morning is mercifully clear as the four of you set out towards your house. Jade packs up the tent and carries it while John grabs any dry wood he comes across as you make your way through the woods, Jade at the lead.

You all take frequent stops to eat bits of the food you received from Aradia (who you suspect knew this would happen) and to let Dave rest. He doesn't say anything about it, but it didn't need saying; He's already doing better, but you all knew his wounds were troubling him. You briefly consider making a push for home as the sun begins to dip, but think better of it; Dave is having enough trouble as it is, and he needs more rest to try and heal until you can get proper medical attention for him once you return to your house (and it's tenuous connection to human civilization).

Jade sets the tent back up in a small clearing after John blows out the previous day's snow. He then excuses himself to check the area. Jade gives you a sheepish look before she pulls Dave into the tent again. 

You enter at her eventual signal. "We may have to decide on a code word if this keeps up too much longer. Or safe word, I suppose." You could positively cackle at their embarrassment.

Minutes later you hear John tromp his way back, doing something outside that the three of you are too comfortable together to deign checking on. When he lets out an excited whoop, Jade finally gets up to see what's going on with a whine from Dave of 'no space heater don't goooo'. You pat his good shoulder in mock-comfort.

From the light crackling outside, you assume he's built a fire.


	2. Mishap

Your phone makes it's presence known at the wonderful time of morning called 'before you've had your coffee', or before you've awakened at all for that matter. Kanaya grumbles next to you and curls her pillow over her head, and you very pointedly ignore the device's shrill cries of "Ass and Titties" that Dave so graciously broke into your phone to set as his personal ringtone. It stops after a few repetitions, but the damage is done: it's going to take an hour to get back to sleep, let alone getting that tune out of your head.

Then it starts again. And a third time after that. You're up and across the room by the time it starts up yet again, berating yourself for not setting it to vibrate before going to bed _though you and Kanaya were a bit too preoccupied to care at the time_. A tap of the power button shows three missed calls and _forty-five_ text messages, all unsurprisingly from Dave. You can feel a headache coming on already.

Your frustration stalls somewhat when a glance at the messages' contents shows them all as "rose" or "help" with varying degrees of desperation and spelling errors piled overtop. With a sigh you take the phone and head downstairs.

He picks up on the first ring, "--Fucking _finally_. Please don't hang up--"

"You have _ten seconds_ to tell me you're being brutally murdered. If you're aren't, I'm going to book a flight to texas and do it myself."

"No it's not that--Rose you've gotta help me."

"With what? The clock's still ticking, by the way."

"With. Uh." He clears his throat. Twice. "Shit--It's complicated."

"Four seconds..."

"Wait!" He practically shouts in your ear before he catches himself, "I'm sending you a picture." 

A minute later there's a chime and you open the image. "Dave. _Really?_ You woke me at this hour to show me amateur porn?" 

There's an anxious noise from the other end. "Rose I want you to look at that picture again _really_ closely and tell me what's wrong with it."

With a sigh, you take a second look and ignore the obvious. _Nothing off with the background, no spooky ghost watermarks..._ And then two realizations occur: one being that you recognize the background from the few video chats you've had with Dave in the past as his room, and the second being your own breasts in the picture.

"Dave, where did you get this."

"Where did I--what? Rose, I just took it."

"From _where_ , Strider."

"From _my room, Rose_. I'm not sure why you're getting angry at me--"

"--Because you just sent me a photo of my breasts!" You remember that Kanaya is trying to sleep and ignore the brief shame over raising your voice.

"They're not yours, they're mine!"

That stops you dead. "...What?"

"Those're--That's me, right now. Are you starting to grasp the _issue_ here or do I need to light up the goddamn dong-shaped freudian batsignal?"

It takes you several moments to try and parse this.

"...Rose?"

"I'm going to make some coffee."

\- - - - -

"So, you simply woke up like that?"

"For the third time yes Rose. No I didn't have any weird dreams or sensations, I just woke up with tits."

"Was that all that was affected?" She takes your noise of supreme discomfort as a 'no, that was not fucking all', and continues: "Does your brother know about this?"

"Fuck no, I'm not leaving my room. The door is locked, the window is shut and I've got a shirt pinned to the wall with shitty ninja stars to cover it. I am entirely willing to starve or bake to death here."

"Death before dishonor, I see." You can hear the wry smile from here. 

" _Rose._ "

"Right. Can you think of anything could be the cause of your sudden... change?"

"Besides you working your mojo on me a while back, not off the top of my head--I've spent most of my time either in the hospital or generally recuperating."

"I can say very certainly that my aid back then isn't the cause."

"And you know this because..."

"While I can do a great many things, altering someone's body so... completely isn't one of them, especially without any side effects."

"What kind of side effects?"

"You don't want me answer that." Jesus christ broodfester whispers over the phone hurt. "Are you certain that nothing else has happened in the last few days?"

You try to scan your memory for any run-ins with angry fortune-tellers or recently defiled ancient burial grounds. Yep, still drawing a blank. "Nothing outside the usual, no."

"Nothing involving the fae from this summer. Or six weeks ago, as it were?"

Taking that angle on things, you run through what's happened since then: Nobody followed you that you know of, and nobody's messed with you since you'd left the hospital and headed back home, and you didn't take anything out without aside from the trail mix Aradia gave you guys--

Rose probably heard palm meeting forehead, since she follows with "Figure something out?"

"I finished off the food Aradia handed out when we left." There's a soft 'hmm' on the other side, followed by an extended silence. 

And then more silence. 

Double-checking and make sure your shitty service hasn't dropped the call, and open your mouth to ask if everything is alright when she replies. "Shot in the dark: The food was conjured in Idir, and we've both seen how even small thoughts can warp reality there. Was the moon full last night?"

"I don't know, maybe? I don't really pay attention to that kind of stuff."

Another 'hmm', shorter this time. "My guess is some confluence of events meant that the border between here and there was thin enough that the food in your system was able to act on your body while you were dreaming. Now as to what that implies about your subconscious we can discuss later." You groan, "If the food is indeed the cause, the effects should wear off when it's out of your system."

"What, so I'm just stuck like this? Can't you do anything about it?"

"Dave, it's the middle of the night and I'm several hundred miles away. Call me if anything else happens."

"Rose--" and she's already hung up. _Shit._ A few seconds later you jump a foot off the bed as the familiar sharp crack of a shuriken comes from your door, signaling that Bro expects you on the roof in an hour.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those wondering, the jingle in question is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPVHoD__6CI


	3. Meeting

John, bless his idiot heart, doesn't understand why Dave's hand is on his sword and Jade is sliding out fuzzy ears and a tail while you keep your eyes trained on the blonde sitting across from you. A moment of confusion crosses his face before the wind kicks up, which transitions to complete shock when he's blown head-over-feet backwards by his own hurricane-of-one. You're not sure how far, but from his shouts he's still going. _At least his fucking windy... **thing** knows trouble when it sees it._

Two pools of lavender sit pointed at you flatly, almost curious--if someone had only had the emotion described to them in sign language that they couldn't speak in the first place. She's wearing Rose's usual mask, but with only quietly bubbling tar or the gentle creep of black ink through water behind it, and you haven't notice her blink or breathe or so much as twitch so far.

You don't want to make any sudden moves or really do anything, since you have _zero fucking idea_ what could set her off. 

Dave on the other hand just relaxes his grip and takes a half-step towards her. He gets out a casual 'So--' 

_SHIT_

Her eyes swivel to him and a sudden wet crunch meets your ears as Dave crumples to the ground, his head at an awful angle. Jade freezes, not even gasping.

_OH GOD OH FUCK OH GOD_

"Wow, rude much." Dave says from your right and you jump so violently it takes a fucking century off your life. Looking back at his corpse you see a pile of feathers and ash, quickly evaporating into nothing while her eyes snap to him again with another sick pulping noise.

This time stepping out from Jade's silhouette, Dave continues: "Seriously can Rose come out and play her friends are all waiting at the doorstep in the cold here--" You take the opportunity to blink. 

When the crunching stops you open your eyes and Dave is standing where he first started, looking pale and sweat-matted. He takes a breath and the air shudders with whatever it is he says; a string of stilted utterances filtered through a swamp water, managing to sound guttural and keening at the same time. It almost makes your skin itch hearing it.

The effect is immediate: her eyes going wide and her face splitting with a smile taken way too far. She tips forward and everyone tenses as she plants face-first into the floor in a heap, eyes following Dave. She stirs after a second, writhing experimentally on the floor before beginning to get her bearings.

She starts clawing her way to Dave, who promptly turns around and motions to the pair of you for a huddle. Jade's still trying to process from the look of things, so he taps her shoulder with his knuckles and sort of gently turns her away from the creature.

After several false starts and croaking coughs, the boy manages to rasp out "Spooky says whatever that is is friendly, but really dumb."

"Sounds about right to me." Comes out of your mouth before you can stop it, and two questioning pairs of eyes turn on you.

_Shit._ You sigh at the slip-up. "She had to explain it after she poisoned Kanaya one time." The name brings Her attention to you and your entire existence flashes before your eyes. Nothing happens. Dave and Jade are still staring questionmarks at you, possibly harder than before. 

Dave clears his throat again, rolling his hand at you. _right, getting on with it._

__

__

"She and Fussyfangs decided to take a vacation from their usual intelligence and try the whole 'feeding' thing together. Turns out her fucked up blood is _hilariously_ toxic, and it damn near killed Kanaya." _Aw fuck there goes the fight or flight again let's not say that name around this thing_ "Rose had to explain it to me while I had to help deal with the mother of all food poisonings."

"So what is this thing?" Jades recovered enough to ask. Eyes flitting to the other girl. The blonde is still flailing and groaning in what you assume

"It's--Fuck I don't know, her explanation was kind of incomprehensibly shitty. Think like, looking through a Rose-shaped microscope at something really goddamn big. We're all used to seeing somewhere in particular, which is the usual flighty broad we all know and tolerate. _This_ thing is also her, but we moved the microscope a little bit to the left."

"I thought that was supposed to be Rose whenever she was... you know. possessed or something." Jade wiggles her fingers in what you guess was suggesting tentacles?

"Nope. That's just Rose without her 'makeup'. This--" you make a clipped motion to the sprawled body "--is a whole different can of worms. Or the other end of the same can of worms." You groan about how fucking stupid you're sounding even to yourself at this point.

Meanwhile, the girl has managed to QWOP her way over to Dave and starts sort of pawing at his pantleg while splayed out on the floor, making weird popping and chittering noises. 

Whatever she's saying must be pretty fucked since the boy's mouth instantly squashes into an uncomfortable line, and even through his shades you can see his eyes going wide. The quizzical looks the pair of you shoot him between glances at the girl just earn a few hasty shakes of his head while a mortified blush is busy mottling his skin from throat to ears.

Which of course only intensifies your expressions. Eyebrows climbing to dangerous peaks of curiosity while Dave starts to sound like he's hyperventilating.

He lets out a gurgling whine that shifts to a sudden almost thudding series of rumbles before descending into an actual human coughing fit that Jade moves to try and help with. When that starts to calm down, you catch an inky fluid wicking into the back of his hand when he wipes his mouth.

The girl at his feet has gone quiet. You look down and your first thought is _oh jesus she's dead Kanaya is going to **kill** you_ before she draws a slow, even breath.

Jade meets your glare of 'what the fuck' with a shrug of her own as you keep your eyes on the now apparently sleeping Rose ( _jesus christ you hope it's Rose again when she wakes up_ ).

After a few minutes of ~~terrified~~ wary silence, you squeak out a proper "What the fuck."

Dave answers just as quietly, almost croaking out: "I told her she was being incredibly silly and to go the fuck back to sleep." And now it's his turn to shrug at your puzzled look, "You said that's still Rose, so I guessed she literally got up on the wrong side of the bed."

You're winding up for another informative round of 'what the actual fuck' when Dave holds up a finger and turns to walk out of the enclosure, where you hear his earlier dinner making a very dramatic second appearance in the nearby hedges.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A rough translation of Dave's initial words would be "Okay dial back the enthusiasm, that kills us squishy humans and you shouldn't do that" after shrieking elation/complaints of agony/joy from his own voices about her basically being a big baby and not used to the whole "corporeal form" business
> 
> As for Rose(?)'s comments, I will have to refrain while I fight back the vengeful spectre of Sigmund Freud.


End file.
